If I recall correctly, I went in to Costco to buy chicken nuggets and pick up my contact lenses. Oh, yeah, we need turkey. Oh, yeah, I need plastic wrap. Oh, yeah, we need bacon. Oh, yeah, we need broccoli.
In the checkout line, I decided to get some frozen yogurt at the concession stand as the kids had behaved reasonably well during our shopping excursion that included two previous stops.
So we were standing in line and JD asked for pizza and a glass of water. Oh, all right.
The concessions people gave us a giant piece of pizza that required dividing. After sitting down, I gave Bunny the large cup of frozen yogurt (they only have one size - Costco size) and set out to make the pizza more able to be handled by a five-year-old. As I began to cut the pizza, JD picked up the water, and on the way to his mouth, dropped it in his lap. Yikes. I grabbed a pile of napkins and dried him off. No big deal. As I finished cleaning him up, I looked over at Bunny. She had apparently taken a huge scoop of frozen yogurt which led to slowly melting chocolate frozen yogurt drip-drip-dripping on her sea green skirt. Ugh.
Finally, they were cleaned up and eating. As they were finishing, I decided to alert the employees that there was a pool of water on the concrete floor under our table where JD had spilled. That's when Bunny came running up to me to say she had to go potty. When she comes to get me, that means it's time to go.
I quickly cleaned up and we headed to the bathroom. JD headed to the urinal and I took Bunny to the stall. She quickly pooped (she's quick,) then yelled, "Daddy, I stink! STINK!" Over and over again. I glanced over the stall walls (if you've forgotten or didn't know, I'm 6'5".) There were a couple of guys in the bathroom chuckling a bit.
So I cleaned her tush and exited the stall to find JD with his shorts and underwear dropped to the floor, his butt just hanging out. I just looked up and laughed, got their hands washed and headed home.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think that he should "take over" but he should take turns. Is your husband the type of man who shied away from diaper duty, also?
DeleteMy first and least sympathetic response is to tell him to quit his moaning and be a Dad.
Then I think about the fact that one parent tends to be the more hands-on parent. Perhaps he has some fear of the unknown or even of failure. For some, it seems rather strange that a grown man or woman would not be able to break down the process of something as routine as going to the bathroom. Yet, for some, it's something so unconscious that a change in the routine, like involving one or more children, makes it a first-time experience. Perhaps if you each take one, at least a few times, he would become more comfortable doing it himself.
Men's bathrooms vary from place to place, often coinciding with the type of place (diver bar = dive bathroom.) The Costco bathroom, for example, was very clean. The biggest discrepancy between men's and women's bathrooms comes in the form of baby changing stations: though not the rule, you will occasionally find businesses where only the women's has a changing table. Not an attractive quality in a business, from where I stand.
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